When The Light Goes Out

by Jack Thompson

  "Lila, calm down."

  "Fucking bastard!" The girl screamed once more, struggling against the combined strength of two men. "Fucking bastard! You shot him! He shot him! Let me the fuck go! I'll kill him!"

  "Lila, 'e was bitten. It was 'im or us, lass. I commend Billy. He did a good job by me standards."

  I thought, at that moment, that Lila was going to kill Blaz. However, she just went limp in their arms, sobbing frantically. I closed my eyes, turning my face into Ian so no one would see me cry as well. Of course I knew that they probably knew I was crying regardless, it only made me feel better knowing they couldn't actually see it. They wouldn't have the satisfaction, if that's what they were going for, and let's be honest, you could never be sure.

  You could never be sure.

  How had we not seen that shot coming? Honestly. How had I not expected someone to whip out a gun, and put a bullet between his eyes? Jesus. Jesus. Fuck. Why were people so messed up in the head? Why the fuck would the man do that, in front of two kids, and the boys friends. As if we wouldn't care or something. Given, Blaz was an exception. But Blaz was odd regardless, so I refused to count him. We didn't want Jeremy to fucking die, and then I felt Ian moving. He was shifting beside me, and I moved my head away slightly to look at him.

  "Ian?"

  The boy was shakily rising to his feet, every person in the room on guard. Blaz and Dustin looked ready to tackle him to the floor, but the boy raised a shaky hand to point. Point. What was he pointing at? I saw every head in the room shift to look, as Lila gasped, and renewed her struggling. I moved my head slowly, wary of the pounding in it, made only worse by the crying.

  "Oh my God."

  I'd forgotten about the bleeding Luke, who was paling considerably about then. He was bleeding, and in that moment I realized what Ian was doing. In a distant way, I didn't agree with it. At all. While at the same time I wanted to cheer him one for having the guts to stand up and point out the next problem. How unfair the situation was. Jeremy was lying dead on the floor, and Luke was leaning there, probably turning into a zombie before our eyes.

  "Well," Ian sounded tired, maybe even sick and his hand was shaking. "Do him too Billy. He was bitten just like Jeremy, it's his turn."

  I heard Lila choke on a sob, and saw the men place her gently on the floor, approaching Ian to try to get him to sit down, and calm himself, but he shook their hands from him. He obviously wanted to no part it, every bit as angry as those few still able bodied of us. He didn't think it was fair that Jeremy was killed, not while there was someone in the same condition, still alive. I saw the muscles about his jaw twitching, and figured he was grinding his teeth.

  "Ran out of bullets then? Shoot him, or bash his head in. It's your choice." "No."

  And, once more, all eyes were on Serena. I was really, really beginning to hate her. With the intensity of a thousand suns, I was starting to hate her. She was always the one with something to say, the one who went against popular opinion, and caused problems. And then I realized exactly what I was thinking. Appalled by the fact that I was more or less describing myself. Stubborn, contrary, clingy.

  "Excuse me?" Ian asked, glaring death at the black haired girl there, but she just crossed her arms angrily. "I said no."

  "Fine then. I hope he eats you first. In the meantime," the boy hissed, pushing himself away from the wall. "I'll take care of him for you."

  It was as if the cocking of the gun echoed through the noisy room. Ian froze. Everyone froze. Where had she gotten the gun from in the first place? It didn't matter right then, all that did was the fact that Serena was pointing a fucking gun at Ian. Hands held perfectly firm. I was ill at ease with the thought that she was perfectly fine shooting the boy. Confused by her suddenly confident presence. There was a secret hanging in the air, and I wanted information.

  "Serena," Malachi spoke up. "Put the gun down." "No."

  "Serena"

  "No one is killing him!"

  "What the hell?!" I demanded, being sure not to slur my words by mistake. If I could have shot to my feet, I would have, but I settled for straightening my back and leveling a glare. "What makes him so special?!"

  "I'm not losing anyone else!"

  "Oh, but it's okay if we lose people?!" "Shut up you brat!"

  "I'm afraid that you're the brat, Serena. Little miss 'I get whatever I want.'" "Excuse me?!"

  "You've got those men folding to your every whim. You get to keep your friends. You somehow manage to convince people that you didn't try to kill me. You" "Shut up!"

  At least, I thought, the gun wasn't pointed at Ian anymore. It was a surprising relief to see he was in the clear, and I felt myself placed against the wall as Malachi got to his feet. Even he was rather shaky standing up. Frightened, or shocked by the gun perhaps. Maybe his legs had fallen asleep. Maybe he was wounded, but wasn't telling anyone. I really hoped he was just a little shocked that the woman had whipped out a gun, the other options led to unfortunate events in my mind.

  "Serena, put the gun down," Malachi spoke calmly. He even smiled at her, but I didn't stop glaring, and she didn't lower the gun. "Serena, there's no need for a gun. No one will hurt

  Luke, okay?"

  "As if I believe that." "Have I ever lied to you?"

  "Sex is the bathroom, remember?"

  "That was Excel lying, not me. I just chuckled because it caught me off guard."

  I wanted to punch the man in the teeth, but obviously couldn't so I shifted my glare to his back instead. He must have realized I was glaring at him, because I could swear he tensed for a minute. And I heard the metallic clang of a gun being dropped on the floor. It was an absolute relief that she put the gun down, but Luke was sliding down the wall, which made me nervous all over again.

  "I know you don't want to lose anyone, Serena," Malachi soothed, quietly approaching the girl as Ian slid down the wall next to me again. Blaz learned against the wall near the window in the room, half covered up by a cabinet. Dustin picked Pixie up again, to calm her, and I started clenching my jaw when Malachi touched Serena's cheek. "Believe me, I understand. I don't want to lose anyone either. But when he changes"

  "He won't change."

  "What do you mean he won't change?" "We have the antidote."

  Those strange moments where everything just seems to move in slow motion seemed to be happening at extremely close intervals, I noticed. Because one was happening right

  then. I swear everyone moved in slow motion, turning towards the girl, Billy, and Jared. Then we all looked over at Luke, and stared at Serena again. She had the smallest smile on her face, apparently unaware that I was trying to figure what the most painful form of murder would be.

  "Antidote?" I was amazed that Ian kept his voice calm. "You have an antidote?"

  "Yes."

  "You fucking bitch!"

  I entirely regretted throwing my arms out to weakly restrain the man. It sent shock waves of utter agony through my entire body, and I fell against his back, trying to stop screaming. At least, I think I was screaming. There was a ringing in my ears right then, and so much noise in the room that I just didn't know. Luckily, Ian chose not to fight my weak grasp, and just leaned sideways, vibrating with outrage. Apparently Lila, and neither of the children were doing any better.

  "Antidote?"

  "Yes. Yes, the antidote."

  "An antidote that will stop someone from turning into a zombie?"

  "Mmhmm," the girl answered with a smile. I wanted to garrote her with a guitar string.

  "Why..?" Lila's voice was low, and dangerous. Yes, dangerous. She sounded like she was ready to kill something. Namely a girl called Serena. "Why the hell didn't you just give the fucking antidote to Jeremy instead of killing him?!"

  Dustin and Blaz both had to dive at Lila to keep her from going after Serena. It was at this point that things moved so fast, I'm sure I lost part of it. All I knew was that everyone was moving, and there was a gun shot. Lila stopped moving for a second, before s
creaming in pain, and taking a tight hold of where blood was gushing from her leg. The fucking bitch shot Lila.

  "You shot Lila!" I screamed out the obvious, actually attempting to move then. I was in so much pain that the world went entirely white, but I didn't stop. I dragged my nails across the floor, trying to pull myself up, and I think one of them may have ripped from my finger, but there was just too much overall pain to really pinpoint such a thing. "Why the fuck did you shoot Lila?!" Jeremy, I understood. I didn't agree with them shooting him, not with the knowledge that they had a fucking antidote. But I did understand the logic. There was simply no fucking reason to shoot Lila. She was being restrained already. Serena had been in no danger. "You had no fucking right to shoot her!" When the world finally came back into focused color, I realized I was actually on my feet, and stumbling over to the gun pointed at my chest.

  "Excel!" Malachi snapped, but I didn't stop moving for fear that I'd fall. "Excel, stop right there!" "She fucking shot Lila!"

  "Freeze!"

  For a moment I did, and that moment was all my legs needed to give out, except I was caught by a pair of relatively strong arms. Malachi lowered me to the floor, and his lips were moving, but I wasn't aware of what he was saying. I heard a sort of buzzing, and an array garbled mumblings, but no actual words. From the corner of my eye, I was aware of Dustin trying to stop Lila from bleeding, but further than that nothing.

  "Why didn't you give Jeremy the antidote?" I was aware of Malachi's calm question sometime later. "We've only got enough antidote for five people."

  "How do you have an antidote?"

  "This is all our fault," Serena whispered. "Don't you think we would have made one when it first started?"

  There were two things that bothered me about the girls words. First it was the fact that girl sounded neither upset, nor ashamed to admit the goddamned epidemic was caused by her, and her friends. The second thing that bothered me was the fact that, apparently, they had the antidote from the very beginning.

  And said nothing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I was listening to the various conversations about the room with only half an ear. I was in the worst form of discomfort, barely able to hold myself upright, but there was movement all around me. I was half zoned out, cheek resting on my own shoulder as I gazed out at what was a bright blue sky. Really it was amazing that mother nature seemed entirely

  blind to the horrors we were suffering. Then again, she was probably cheering that we'd be out of her hair, finally. And I wouldn't have been able to place blame.

  We certainly weren't the best people we could be. We overweight, self assured, pigs that more than deserved to be put in our place. We littered, polluted, and ruined what nature gave us. Wasted the natural gifts of the planet. It was about time some disaster snuffed out Americans once and for all. I just wished that it had been done in a less painful way, and that it wasn't self inflicted.

  I zoned back into reality, out of my inner monologueesque, rant at the mention of an eerie name. "Criss." I carefully tilted my head so I could see Serena, looking entirely furious with her hands clenched at her sides. She obviously didn't like having to talk about Criss. Luke looked halfway to dead. Blaz looked sad. But it was Jared who really interested me.

  His eyes were filled with tears.

  "Who the hell is this 'Criss' that everyone keeps talking about?" George demanded, sounding far older than he was, glaring at the group of offending adults in the room. He obviously wanted answers just as much as I did, and I was happy that he was able to ask. I found I could barely open my mouth, and my tongue wasn't cooperating. Talking wasn't going to happen anytime soon, so I had to rely on George to ask my question. "Who the hell was he?"

  It was more the sound of the slap than the sight that made me recoil. "Don't you ever speak about him like that!"

  "Don't you ever touch him like that again!" I was shocked by the conviction in Dustin's voice. "He's a kid, and he's wounded. Don't you dare lay a rotten hand on him, you spoiled brat!"

  "Spoiled brat?!" Serena demanded, laughing viciously at the man. "Guess you miss using that on your own kid, eh?" "Don't you bring Duke into this."

  "And what kind of name is 'Duke,' anyway?" Serena asked. Her voice was growing progressively cold, and it was really beginning to freak me out. "I swear to God, you're about to get your face pounded, little girl."

  "Oh, I feel so threatened."

  "You should feel threatened you little skank." "Skank, now? What the fuck makes me a skank?" "Maybe the fact that you are one!"

  "You stay out of this!" "Make me!"

  "Don't you talk to Serena that way!" "I'll talk to Serena however I"

  "Will you all shut the hell up?!" Malachi demanded suddenly, glaring death at every person involved in the argument. Dustin was furious, it was plastered on his face, but one couldn't blame him. The girl was insulting his child. His baby boy. The baby boy he probably wasn't ever going to see again. "It is not the time to be arguing, okay?"

  Every single person in the room was at someone's throat, or had someone at theirs. With the exception of Lila, who was slowly bleeding to death, and me who just couldn't move in general. I couldn't have been at anyone's throat even with assistance. I wanted, desperately, to give Serena the ultimate tongue lashing, but Malachi did it for me.

  I didn't immediately realize that the man was scolding her, but grinned when I finally did. Grinning, openly as I did, was just one more bad move to add to my growing collection. There was a sudden hush seconds after my lips curled, then suddenly everyone was screaming. There was a rustling of clothing, and pounding of feet, and a searing pain just blossoming through my arm.

  It was one more pain, I didn't even acknowledge it further than a sharp intake of breath. One more ache meant nothing because I was already pained to the point of paralysis. I opted to ignore it entirely until I identified a warm rush down the quickly numbing arm. I was bleeding, and distantly noted that my ears were ringing from what could have been a gunshot.

  No.

  It had been a gunshot.

  Bang.

  The sound had been distinct. The bitch shot me.

  Malachi was on me in a second, putting pressure on the broken, screaming flesh. I wasn't sure someone could bleed out from a shot in the arm, but he looked extremely worried. He was saying something that the ringing in my ears covered up, and before I could figure anything out, he was speaking to someone across the room.

  The first thing I heard as the ringing faded was, "Answer the question!" There were angry murmurs going through the room. But Serena, and I knew It was her without looking, made a dismissive noise. I could almost envision the conceited look on her face.

  "I loved him," Serena started. I could barely lift my head, but saw her violent glare all the same. "Criss, I loved him. So much. I knew him all my life." "We all did," Jared interjected. "We all knew him forever. He brought our group together."

  "But I loved him," Serena insisted. "We were going to get married when we got out of school, but then all of this happened. The zombies. It started on a small scale. One or two animals were infected. Criss realized what was going on, so we caught the animals to find a way to fix it."

  "We admit it was a terrible move"

  "No it wasn't!" Serena shrieked, turning on Jared suddenly. "Criss just wanted to save everyone. What's so wrong with that?" When no answer was forthcoming, she continued. "He did some tests on the animals. He'd just about isolated the virus when a specimen broke from it's cage. All we heard was screaming"

  "Criss was the first infected human." "We couldn't kill him."

  "You didn't let"

  "He was so fast! He just got away. We didn't think he'd do much damage. We continued his research, and after a good lot of trials, we found a cure." "You loved him?" I asked, voice low from strain.

  "I love him. As in not past tense." "Then how can you love Malachi?"

  There was another bout of silence in the room, however thoughtfu
l this time. I didn't know why I was dwelling on the fact the girl was so obviously in love with Malachi, other than the fact that she seemed to be using everything she could against us, so I wanted at least some form of an upper hand. She glared at me, I could barely see it from where my head was positioned, but I clearly saw Malachi glare back for me.

  I closed my eyes then, realizing that they felt rather heavy. There was noise, like white noise, in the distance. The voices around me faded away ever slightly. It felt like I was listening to the people in the room talk, argue, shout, through a door. Ear not quite pressed up against it, for fear that someone on the other side would open it and catch me. It felt similar to the fabled "out of body experiences."

  Suddenly Malachi jerked from where he was pressing my arm, and I was dragged several feet across the floor by my foot; back scraping, wounds ripping open, arm screaming. Something was jammed against my throat, when a knee in my chest stopped my progression across the floor. I didn't breathe for a moment, trying to figure out what was there. All I knew was that it hurt, terribly, and felt oddly warm.